


Welcome to the Jungle

by JaqofSpades



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Multi, romeokijai's birthday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-23
Updated: 2016-04-15
Packaged: 2018-05-22 18:56:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6090805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaqofSpades/pseuds/JaqofSpades
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nora Clayton thought she knew Miles Matheson.  She really, really didn't - but that doesn't stop her from wading into his war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fun 'n' Games

**Author's Note:**

  * For [romeokijai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/romeokijai/gifts).



> So, I promised a one-shot but this is going to be three short chapters instead, I PROMISE. And fast, within the week even! I could have waited til it was done, but I NEEDED to share. Enjoy my lovely romeo, it's ALL yours :D Happy post birthday and Valentine's Day all rolled into one. (Inspired by [this prompt](http://theorgyarmada.tumblr.com/post/139598290619/theorgyarmada-theorgyarmada-day-two-no)  
> from The Orgy Armada, as well as hayj's fill to that prompt, AND an afternoon spent out walking with Guns n Roses.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gorgeous art by romeokijai :D

 

Nora stumbles inside the command tent, cursing the windblown sand cascading from her hair as she tries to force her eyes into focus.   “Sarge,” she says. “Call for you in comms.”

He drags his attention away from topographical map and unfolds his lanky frame from the dinky little chair. “Thank you, Marine.”

Nora smiles and turns to return to her post when a long arm captures her from behind, hand splayed across her belly. Her breath immediately abandons her, the way it always does, and she wants to hiss “I’m on duty” and “not here.” Instead, she moans, and rubs her ass across his half-hard cock.

“Want you,” he mutters into her hair, fingers sliding lower to cup her mound through her DCUs.

“Caller will be gone,” she gasps, and grabs his hand to pull it away. Miles Matheson makes her stupid, she knows that. But she’s still got some sense of self-preservation, and has no intention of getting caught fucking her superior officer just two weeks before she’s due to go home.

(They’ve learnt to rut quietly in the wee hours of the night, and if she dreams of a long, slow fuck where she can scream her head off, it’ll have to wait. What she’s got is an arrangement with the soldier on watch, the sandy floor of her CO’s tent, and a man who knows how to choke her just enough to make her come really, really hard, while muffling her screams.)

What’s she got, Nora reminds herself, is 299 hours left in this hellhole before she can breathe again, her dreams rich with sweet south Texas air that tastes of sagebrush rather than scorched earth. Sometimes she’s with Dad in Galveston, salt tang so sharp she can taste it. She thinks about hanging out by the sea for a while, wearing a bikini while she works up her resume. Nora’s never been one for about aimlessness or idleness, but anyplace has to be better than here. Any _thing_ is better than here, she vows as the tent city shudders to distant mortar fire, never quite distant enough.

And then remembers she’s got a stack of requisitions for Miles to sign, and heads after him, slipping into the comms tent on silent feet. She’s only a foot away when he lifts his head to snarl at her, but it’s too late. She’s already caught a snatch of a conversation that makes no sense. Yet.

“It’s done,” crackles across the tinny line, and “I need you, Miles.” It’s not until later, not until the mess hall gossip and the newspaper clippings and the blurry pictures from CNN that she’s able to make any sense of it.  A killing, on the other side of a world. A name she knows.

A thicket of black limousines and sharp-dressed men, standing guard over a young woman in a tight black dress, her face veiled in lace. Her spine is ramrod straight, but as the clods start to fall, she slumps into the arms of the man beside her. Miles. The camera swoops in for a closer look, and the whole world sees his lips are moving against her hairline, her hand clutching at his jacket. The voiceover burbles on, but Nora tunes it out mostly, too mesmerised by the picture.

They call the girl “the Matheson Princess” and weave a web of intrigue around Miles, “prodigal son,” and “the unknown quantity,” and laughably, “the white sheep of America’s blackest family.”

Nora stares at the man on the screen, face lined with grief, eyes dark with calculation, and braces herself for the storm about to blow in. Because she might have fooled herself she knew everything there was to know about Miles Matheson, but she still knows that look.

He’s about to unleash hell.

(She should start running now. Get out. Because there’s still a part of her that would burn herself alive, just to stand next to him.)

*

There’s a limo parked across from the bus that would take her off the base.

Everything in her clenches at the sight of him, shiny shoes, black suit, even a natty little hat. He’s leaning against the car, pretending he has all the time in the world, probably inwardly seething. She’d ignored his calls for a month after he left – her last two weeks in Iraq, the first week back on American soil, the second week clearing one hurdle after another for her EAS paperwork. Now she’s officially out, and here he is.

The lover she had no idea had grown up a gangster. The best killer she knew. The strategist always planning his next move, the people around him mere pieces in play.

Just as well she’d never fallen in love with him.

“You ready to talk to me yet?” he calls as she hefts her bag onto her shoulder and gives him her back. “Nora!”

Her foot is already on the first step of the bus when he huffs out a laugh and fires his last shot. “Guess I’ll cancel that enrolment for Mia at Eastwood then.”

Nora closes her eyes, trapped. She’d been dreaming about it for years, moving Mia out of their hardscrabble local high school and into a place that would offer her a real chance. It had been Miles who collected that stack of brochures, and they’d talked the various programmes through. This one too academic, that one too religious. Something creative, they’d both agreed. “A brain like that, need to keep it fed,” Miles had pointed out.

He’d know, of course.

He’d mentioned moving from school to school, suspensions and boredom and expulsions. Marines nearly hadn’t taken him, even though he’d blitzed their academic tests.

She doesn’t doubt his concern for Mia. He’d been good like that. But that’s not all that’s happening here, and she hates him for knowing her so well.

Hates herself for not caring as much as she should.

“Put it on the table, Matheson,” she snarls, and won’t look at him, even as he lays it out. Private security. Rich client. Full oversight.

“You the client?” she sneers, and he laughs. Jerks his head towards the blacked out windows of the limousine. “Nah. Her.”

And fuck him for knowing exactly what it takes to draw her out. He lifts a brow, opens the door a little, daring her to turn him down. It’ll just be a job, she tells herself. For Mia. But as she steps into the limo and slides along the leather seat, she can’t shake the feeling she’s already caught.

Miles is a wall of heat behind her as she turns to meet the girl he wants her to protect.

Blue eyes full of hope torture her conscience as red lips bloom into a smile so beautiful it steals her breath. “Hi,” the girl says. “I’m Charlie.”

“Nora,” she says curtly, then swings furious eyes back to Miles. “What have you got in place?”

“Bunch of goons. No one good, until now,” he drawls, falling into the seat opposite. “Assuming you’ll take the job.”

The girl – and she is girl, probably hasn’t even made it out of her teens – pleads mutely, then squeals at Nora’s grudging nod.

“Strictly business,” she growls at Miles, and tries to sound convincing. “That school better be good.”

“It is.” he shrugs, and spreads his legs out, the picture of snake-like satisfaction. “Charlie graduated last year.”

“Valedictorian,” the Matheson princess confirms, then yanks her attention away from Nora, launching herself across the limo and into her uncle’s lap.

Nora tries to convince herself it’s all very innocent, right up until the minute his hand disappears up her skirt. “Thank you, Uncle Miles,” Charlie purrs, nestling closer to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “You get me the _best_ toys.”

She licks him, then, a slow, teasing swipe along his lower lip, before he yanks her up for the wettest, dirtiest kiss Nora has ever seen.  Her shock must have forced its way out of her lungs, because when she is finally able to look, Miles is watching her, even as he grinds the girl against his cock. There’s a calculation in his eyes that sends chills down her spine. She knows that look. She’s seen it directed at all their new recruits, over the years.   The mindfuck, he calls it.

So maybe he’s pushing to see just how much she’ll take, or just how far her tolerance extends. Maybe it’s her loyalty he wants to test. Doesn’t matter. The sense memory that breaks over her head boils her in her own skin, and scrapes her raw with desert sand.

They’ve flown half way around the world, but she’s back there, the stench of burnt bodies sharp in her nostrils. Wading into yet another war.

And that’s just the start of the story.


	2. Feel my serpentine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this has taken a while. Because I wanted it to be perfect. Hopefully chapter three will be better behaved :D

Miami presses in on her, a stifling, inescapable blanket, and Miles gets grumpier by the day. Charlie starts to snap at him, and then moves to the sort of cruel taunts that Nora has begun to suspect are a Matheson family trait.

“Too hot for you, old man?” she coos, and strips off her bikini top to expose her surprisingly lush breasts. Her nipples are already peaked – girl does love to argue – and half of the heads around the hotel pool swivel to take in the sight. Miles clearly wants to shoot them all, but grits his teeth instead.

“For fuck’s sake. This is your idea of a low profile? We’re meeting the Mexicans at six, and this place is probably crawling with their people,” he says, his not-quite-whisper still cracking with command. “Put your top back on.”

Nora tunes them out to inspect the onlookers. They spend almost as much time arguing as they do making out, and no one will catch her watching when there are bare tits to look at. The spot she’d chosen was strategically sound – in one corner with a solid wall at their backs and the archway back into the hotel in clear view – but the pool had been mostly empty when they’d arrived, and now there is a whole row of heads turned their way. None of them looks particularly suspicious, but Nora’s experience with Mexican drug cartels is exactly zero. Until today.

Miles had been so casual about it. “Your garden variety drug lord. We’re looking to streamline our supply lines,” he’d shrugged. The disgust must have shown on her face, because he’d thrown her a bone: they’d keep it need-to-know. And she didn’t need to know about how he planned to ruin countless vulnerable lives. Just their security implications.

Turns out, dealing with jackals brings plenty of those. The dossier Miles had tossed her way hadn’t held much, just a handful of grainy photographs and some video that had to be five years old. The FDA file – Nora doesn’t even want to know how Miles got his hands on that – is more illuminating, detailing several operations that had failed to bring down Luis Nunez.

Nora was glad to discover Nunez didn’t make a sport of killing his rivals like some of the cartels – he favoured brutal, scorched-earth efficiency instead. Flogging was his favourite entertainment, and he had a stable of mistresses ranging from the happily pensioned off to the barely pubescent. There was a sort-of son, too, at least on Nunez’s good days. Other days, the not-very-Mexican-sounding Connor Bennett was described as the drug lord’s lieutenant.

And these were the men joining them for dinner.

Miles shuffles to the worst of the photographs and glowers at it. “This is Bennett. Nunez raised the kid after his bitch of a mother abandoned him in Mexico.” His finger flicks at the image, and something that looks like regret passes over his face. “Probably all kinds of fucked up.”

Nora makes a note to take a proper look into Connor Bennett’s background, because Miles isn’t wasting his sympathy on some random kid. Man, she corrects, as her attention is captured by the photograph. Connor Bennet’s face seems to defy the blurriness of the rest of the image to jump clear from the page, long and sensuous, the interplay between devastating dark eyes and a wide, teasing mouth making it difficult to look away. Only a deep cleft in his chin rescues him from being downright beautiful, adding a ruggedness that sends a shiver up Nora’s spine.

“Not a kid,” she smirks to herself, and looks up to find herself receiving the full, icy blast of Matheson judgment. “We’re worried about him why?”

Miles – who never hesitates – is slow in answering.

“He wants an introduction to Charlie. Or – Nunez wants to introduce him to Charlie, I’m not sure. But they made it part of the terms.”

“An … introduction?”

“Yeah. Some old fashioned Mexican shit. So we’re gonna have ‘em over for dinner and maybe let the kid take her out drinks, but you’re with them the whole fucking time. You don’t even leave that room to pee,” he’d snarled.

Nora blinks. She’s only getting part of the story, she knows that, but still. It’s unexpected. And a sad reflection on just how twisted her life has become that she can’t decide which surprises her more – Miles letting a junior drug lord anywhere near his beloved niece, or pretending to allow another man to court the girl he’s clearly fucking.

And then there’s his outright stupidity in not bothering to mention the fact to Charlie until breakfast that morning. She’d been involved in the business before – apparently Ben Matheson didn’t believe in shielding his children from the source of their wealth – but according the Charlie, this was a new low.

“So, if we play nice over dinner, do you get a few mil off the cost price, Miles? What’s the discount if I go straight for the old spit and suck? Maybe if I ignore the kid and rock the old man’s world, he’ll give you the shit for free!”

By mid-afternoon she had spun into stage two of the tantrum, poring over the photographs, tracing Bennett’s full lips and speculating about his skill at oral. Stage three involved wandering around their suite naked as she made sly jabs about younger men’s famous endurance, then dancing away when Miles offered to dispel the rumour. Stage four – quite clearly – involved seducing the entire goddamn pool.

Careful, Charlie, Nora thinks as Miles starts to white knuckle his grip on the lounger, and grind his teeth. His own stupid fault, of course, for allowing Charlie anywhere near these people, but … as much as their relationship revolts her, she could have sworn there were real feelings there, beyond the familial and sexual connection. How is it he doesn't have a problem with using his niece – and lover – as a bargaining chip?

Nora jumps into action when Miles starts to flush with fury, trying to ignore that stupid flip-flop her belly does at his possessive growl. She stabs herself with reminders – not directed at you, he doesn't care about you – even as she pushes herself up off her own lounger, bending forward to shield Charlie as she tries to encourage her to put her top back on.

God forbid a gorgeous young girl should remove her bikini top while sunbathing by the pool. No profit in that, Miles? Nora smiles viciously as his eyes drill holes into her ass, trying to ignore the long-neglected part of her is glad she chose the tiny white suit, the perfect foil for her glossy, coconut-oiled skin. She can't help but lean forward a little further, practically crawling on top of the girl as she reaches for the sunscreen. “Give it up, kid. He's about to blow.”

“I hope so,” Charlie purrs. “Think he'd blow me right here?”

Nora swallows her smirk. They both know she's been there but she's not about to admit it. And the last thing she needs right now is to remember just how talented Miles Matheson was with his tongue. Three months, and she’s still confusing the man she thought she knew, the Marine she had trusted, with the snake that took his place. Or was the snake disguised as a Marine all along? Her heart hurts every time she tries to unravel that conundrum, so she leaves it alone and forces herself to see him as a stranger. Her slimeball boss. Banging his barely-legal niece, yet seemingly happy to pimp her out for his own benefit.

Dick. No – Miles was a dick. This guy, this guy is much lower than that. A pustule. A pustule on a limp dick.

Nora uses the anger to propel herself upright, dabbing sunscreen onto her shoulders as she scopes out the pool. Lots of retired trophy wives, but any one of them could be a cover. And the gaggle of bronzed boys who look altogether too well groomed to be straight, but are happily ogling Charlie’s spectacular body anyway.

Much to the slimeball’s opprobrium. “Come on, Charlie. Everyone is watching you. Put them the fuck away.”

“So what? Are you worried they’ll think I’m not pure enough for their precious young jefe? Or is it that you think my tits aren’t big enough to secure the East Coast trade?”

Miles looms over her, his long body making it impossible for anyone but Nora and Charlie to see the sneer on his face. “Guess they're perky enough, but Nora's are better. Don't see her flashing the whole pool, do you?” He reaches down to give one pouting nipple a cruel twist, forcing tears into Charlie's eyes. “Play the slut for me all you like later, but for now, cover it up, Buttercup.”

She slaps him, of course.

Miles rears back with a curse, and Nora chooses prudence over valour, dragging Charlie out of the lounger and halfway across the lobby in a bid to relocate the inevitable showdown. Charlie fights her all the way, dragging her feet and twisting like an eel in her fury, slapping at Nora for daring to intervene.

Then she stills, and Nora is stupid enough to let out a sigh of relief when she should have been looking for the next danger. Because her hands are still on Charlie’s shoulders, and the girl takes advantage of her hold to burrow closer, hands suddenly gripping Nora’s ass rather than trying to push her away. Their hipbones bang together, and Charlie’s bare breasts press up against her clothed ones. They’re the same height, Nora thinks dazedly. The proximity is devastating – her nipples bud and harden, even before Charlie adds friction into the mix with a purposeful sway that drags her rock hard nipples back and forth across Nora’s own.

The moment slows to pure, honeyed pleasure, until the tantalising slide of fingers along her inner thigh makes Nora horrendously aware of her own arousal – and the fact that Charlie is dangerously close to discovering exactly how wet she is.

“Mmmm,” her charge hums into her ear. “Nice, huh? Let’s go upstairs and take it all off.”

Her sex-drunk mind is searching for an appropriate response when Miles looms over Charlie’s shoulder to drag the girl away.

“I’ll take you upstairs,” Miles says through gritted teeth. “March.”

He doesn’t look back, but the set of his spine - there’s anger, and then there’s the vengeful place Miles Matheson goes to after that, where the offender is likely to find their helmet stinking of piss, or their nice, safe rotation swapped for a suicide-watch on the front lines. And that was when he made some attempt to bow to social expectations.

Nora finds herself trailing after them like a kicked dog. It’s a relief when her anger takes over, banishing her guilt and shame until she’s seething, vibrating, her gun hand twitching as the disbelief and indignation reaches boiling point. It’s not like she been the one hitting on Charlie. Or she’d even agreed to go upstairs with her. She’d been a mere bystander caught in their sick game of sexually charged payback, and besides, if that’s how he reacts to your garden variety come on, why throw another man into Charlie’s orbit anyway?

He’s a domineering, possessive bastard and his precious niece is a manipulative little cow and dammit, she won’t be toyed with again.

(Because that’s all it was, round six of Charlie versus Miles, and it didn’t mean a goddamn thing. Her stupid body might be slow to figure that out, what with her pulse trying to deafen her and the insistent throb in her pussy, but she was just horny right? Needed to get laid? Nothing to do with them, really.)

The elevator ride is a feat of strained silence, and once they reach the penthouse, Miles unlocks the door with a swipe so vicious that the door does well to answer. He dismisses Nora with a look so black that goosebumps multiply on her over-sensitised skin; she opens her own door with shaking fingers and sags against it the minute she is finally alone, closing her eyes in an attempt to get her equanimity back.

A shower. A dress for tonight. Something stern, she tells herself. Silken armor. Soon she’ll have moved past this, forgotten it, just one more moment of Matheson-wrought madness in her life. She marches into the bathroom to peels her drenched bikini bottoms off her body, kicking them towards the laundry chute before tossing the top after them. So she can’t let herself look in the mirror, brown and lithe and so desperately aroused, shaking and shuddering with sensual neglect. She’ll get over it. She always has before. Why should this be any different?

(You know why.)

“Did she feel good?”

Nora whirls around, groping for the towel she’d thrown over a hook that morning. The steam in the room obscures his features, but it’s not like she needs to _see_. She knows the voice, knows his every mood. Teetering on the edge, he might be, but even Miles wouldn’t kill her just for daring to touch what he considered his.

She hopes.

Just in case, she ignores the question. He knows the answer anyway.

“Did you want a taste, Nora? Just a little bite of those pretty tits? Can’t blame you there, the way she was parading them about. Think you had an invitation, did you?”

Her mouth works helplessly, but he hasn’t finished.

“Or maybe you had other plans. Further south. If I’d come along two minutes later, what would I have seen? Still like it on your knees, Nora? I bet you would have done it right there too, all that sweet juice, just dripping off your chin. Horny bitch.”

She can’t respond as her brain pounces on each filthy image in turn. She tries to say no, but it stings on her tongue. She whirls into the attack before she is forced to fully examine exactly how much she wants Charlie Matheson. “Fuck you, Miles. I didn’t do a damn thing. Your freaky little niece rubbed herself all over me, and I –“

He lunges at her, six foot three inches of stalking predator, pouncing out of the steam. He’s naked, except for a black robe, and she can smell the girl all over his skin, Charlie’s scent as thick as perfume on the long fingers closing about her neck.

“You what, Nora? You were revolted? Pissed off? Because it looked to me like you were about to push her up against the nearest wall,” he hisses straight into her face. “I know that look. You were so hot for her you were ready to explode.”

He shoves her downwards, her knees buckling under the force of his grip. “Still want a taste, Nora? I might have fucked her a little hard to teach her a lesson, but she couldn't seem to stop coming so I'm guessing she didn't mind. Go on. Lick her off my cock.”

And – God. She loves his cock, always did, and maybe its oxygen deprivation or maybe it’s just the scent of them, combined, Matheson and Matheson, rising sweet from that long, throbbing column of flesh. Her head swims, and she sways towards him, tongue already flickering out of her mouth, before her pride yanks her back.

She had vowed to keep this purely business. Had cursed him to the seven hells and sworn to never let him touch her again.

“Well?”

She bites down the words out of spite, and his free hand finds her achingly sensitive nipples, stroking and flicking so gently she can't help the pleasured sigh. Paradoxically, his gentleness flings her back towards anger – he's never been gentle with her before. She never wanted him to be.

“Yes! I wanted to taste her! I wanted to fuck her!” Nora throws up at him, and dives onto his cock, careless with her teeth as she chases every last drop of cum. “Still want to.”

He answers by yanking her onto her feet and pushing her across the room, throwing her onto the bed face-first. He's a single, glowing brand scorching her skin as he slams down on top of her, cock a hard rod between her ass cheeks. “Well, you don't always get what you want,” he snarls into her ear. “Because she really wanted to watch me fuck you first.”

Nora doesn’t have time to react before he’s dragging her hips high to plunge deep into her pussy, slamming right to her cervix in a stroke so hard it makes her eyes water, but immediately has her arching her back, begging for more. Once he has her pinned, he releases one hand to tease the sensitive ring of flesh guarding her back passage; Nora moans, knowing it's been too long.

“I can't – it'll hurt without –“ and then the bed dips in front of her, and Charlie is kissing her, slow and dirty as her fingers slide between Nora's folds to find her clit, to circle it, to flick and roll and rub, maddening and never quite enough.

There's a rough, broken voice in the room, and it's her own. Begging. “Please!”

Miles laughs above her as she rocks back, wriggling so as to force his slippery pinkie past her tight ring. “That's it, Nora. Fuck yourself on my fingers. That's how you like it, isn't it baby? My cock in your pussy and my fingers in your ass?”

She can't answer because she's about to come, stroked inside and out, flying apart, and Charlie – Charlie is sucking on her clit now, no longer careful, teeth grazing and too sensitive and oh fuck -

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” Nora screams, the initial explosion giving way to a series of uncontrollable convulsions that leave her babbling and wrecked. “Oh God, don't – please – Miles. Please Miles!”

There's a vengeful nip at her clit, and she'd apologise, she really would, but … Miles is driving her forward on top of Charlie now, his thrusts starting to lose any rhythm. He disengages with an unceremonious shove that leaves them both pushed up the bed, Nora dragging in desperate gouts of air, Charlie giggling as her arousal-heavy blue eyes stare back into Nora's own.

“Fancy meeting you here,” she grins cheekily, then wriggles backwards until she's sitting up on the pillows, almost angelic with her long fall of golden hair covering her breasts. Then she spreads her legs wide, pink folds still smeared with what Nora can only assume is Miles' cum.

“You're disgusting,” she tells them both, but she still lets Miles shoot all over her breasts, and nearly comes again when he licks it off. She curses him when he slaps her ass – hard – and orders her to eat Charlie out, but still succumbs to the lure of those exquisite pink folds, redolent with two flavours of Matheson.

Still shakes with delight when he noses into her from behind, his tongue teasing her from clit to asshole as her fingers dig tight into Charlie's thighs with every sensitive pass. Her own mouth is busy winding Charlie tighter, sipping and sucking and slurping at the feast before her, but the pleasure bursts out of her lungs in a short, sharp huffs – Miles! Miles! Miles! - that make his niece buck and scream.

She's still Nora, even if she's abandoning everything she once knew. Believed in. And for what? Even when he was still Miles, she knew better than to fall in love with one Matheson, let alone two. This is just madness.

It’s Miami, she tells herself. The air barely stirring and sweat lying heavy on her skin. _You’re in the jungle, baby,_ Axl screams from somewhere in her deep past, and the old anthem floods back, the warning sharper than it’s ever been. _Ya learn to live like an animal in the jungle where we play/If you got a hunger for what you see/you’ll take it eventually_ …

Take the hint, she urges herself, even as she lets herself fall into the sweaty tangle of arms and legs, exhaustion beckoning. She knows what comes next, after all. Can't forget.

_it’s gonna bring you to your knees, knees …_

 

 


	3. Sucked down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo this really WAS going to be the last chapter, but in the end Connor and Nora needed a little extra time to sort things out. Also: be warned there is a sting in the tail of this chapter with a fairly harsh moment of non-con. Be warned if you are sensitive to that.

They're late to dinner.

Miles escorts Charlie to the table, Nora prowling around the edge of the room after trilling something inane about powdering her nose.  She ignores the urge to roll her eyes at all the bulky jackets and hard-eyed men, instead adding a little extra slink to her step.  No one looks past what they expect to see, she thinks viciously. Just another crimelord’s slut.

The bitemark on her inner thigh throbs as if to her remind her just how close to the truth it is.  He might as well have branded her, Nora fumes.  She’d been helpless above him, knees spread so wide she couldn’t push herself off his face if she wanted to, muscles like water in the wake of too many orgasms, too close together.  Miles had pitched her over the edge ruthlessly, then turned his head to bite down on the tender flesh of her inner thigh.  It had hurt like a _bitch_ , but she’d been too far gone to care, shaking and shuddering above him, the white hot blaze of it lost in general brutality of her orgasm.

It will probably scar, she reminds herself as she approaches the table, consciously ordering herself not to glare at Miles.  Instead, she turns her smile on the men at the table with him, both of whom stand to greet her.  Luis Nunez catches her hand and bows over it – “enchante, Ms Clayton” – but his old world manners do nothing to disguise those reptilian eyes.  Something deep in her gut is telling her to run.  It’s so overwhelming that when she turns her head to greet the other man, she is completely unprepared for the way her breath catches in her throat, and her heart stops.

There was nothing a photograph could have done to prepare her for Connor Bennett.

His hair is longer now, she notes, the shaggy curls framing his face like a painting.  They aren’t black, like the grainy image had led her to believe: more a deep chestnut colour.  His eyes, by contrast, are darker than she expected, black pools that somehow still manage to be warm.  Make her warm, she has to admit.  Ridiculously so.

“Ma’am,” he says respectfully, offering his hand to shake.  She wants to laugh, and tell him she’s only a few years older than he is.  But the last thing she can let herself do in this pit of snakes is let herself follow her instincts.  Especially when her libido is involved.  That bitch already has too much to answer for.

“Mr Bennett,” she says sweetly, her smile almost dismissive.  She sits, and then moves her chair a little closer to Miles.  Charlie, she notices, has done the same, and Miles has a satisfied smirk playing around the edges of his mouth.  Bastard can’t help himself.

(Later, she’ll realise that Charlie has had her hand in his lap since they sat down, and yes, they’re just _that_ shameless.  Not that she’s paying attention.  She’s too busy not looking at Connor Bennett, trying not to snub him while protecting herself from that warm, wicked gaze.)

Because he should be looking at Charlie, but he’s not.  He glances at her with an amused twist to his mouth, and then his eyes return to Nora, full of questions that have nothing to do with the Mathesons.

Oh help, Nora thinks. Help, when Bennett’s dark chocolate eyes have her biting her lip, and help, when Nunez shoots him a venomous glare for forgetting to play the loyal second in command.  He reins it in then – asks Miles about his time in the Marines, quizzes Charlie about her preferences in film, converses intelligently about the risks and rewards of the cartel’s more legal businesses.

Smart, Nora thinks.  Oh, help.

It’s Nunez who leaves Miles gritting his teeth in the end, his compliments so extravagant Nora can’t help smile at the reptile. Her mother, surely, had to be from Venezuela as everyone knew the world’s most beautiful women came from Venezuela, he says, and the smile on her face is almost genuine as she demurs. 

“Guatemala, actually,” she says, and Nunez burbles something about the wisdom of the Maya and how royal blood must surely course through her veins …

She thanks him prettily in her mother’s tongue, and he laughs in delight before admitting he wasn’t sufficiently privileged to speak Mayan, _patriomonio_ of all Mexicans as it was.  Nora wants to remind him of all the ancient villages the drug lords had depopulated, all the girls they had stolen, all the families ruined. Instead she smiles.

“Indeed,” she says, and distracts herself with the surprise stamped on Miles’ face, the glimmer of shame in his eyes.  You never thought to ask, she shrugs in response to the question she knows is coming.

Shouldn’t have needed to, the twist of his mouth replies, and she laughs out loud, then.  Because Miles Matheson had been so forthcoming about his own family.  Because her comfortable upbringing in San Antonio had hidden nothing more than a slightly exotic background.

“To family,” he salutes her with his glass of wine, and Charlie echoes the gesture with her own glass.  Bennet looks sad as he lifts his own to repeat the toast, but Nunez – Nunez’s knuckles are white, clamped tight around the stem of his glass in barely concealed fury.  But he nods his head stiffly, then snarls the words after a long beat of silence.  His lifts has glass towards Miles with a sardonic flourish that holds the same menace as if he were gutting a rival with a single slash of a hunting knife.

Nora would have dismissed the impression as utterly crazy, if Miles hadn’t just sat there, grinning at the man, satisfaction oozing from every pore.

Her sense of unease grows as the evening grinds on, the half-understood barbs flying around the table becoming increasingly more vicious.  No matter what Miles said, this is somehow about more than a drug deal.  Could it be something about Connor and Charlie, perhaps?  Was “introduction” some sort of code for a crazy Mafia-style forced marriage?

If it is, no one seems wedded to the idea. By the time dessert arrives, Charlie’s hands are obviously wandering under the table, and she and Miles come back from the washroom noticeably flushed and rumpled.  Bennett glances at them, then directs his laughing gaze at Nora, amusement pulling at that incredibly mobile mouth.

“If you need an escort to the bathroom, Miss Clayton, I’m happy to help.”

Brave, she thinks, as both Miles and Nunez shoot him killing looks.  This table is all full up with alpha wolves, kid.

Not that it matters.  Every time she looks at him, he seems to be watching her.  And that expression of awed admiration – does he really think she’ll buy that when there’s a girl 15 years her junior and 20 times more beautiful sitting right there next to him?

Only the cryptic conversation taking place between Miles and Nunez seems to grab his attention, and the frown that creases his forehead, the unease – it doesn’t set her mind to rest any.  Especially when his gaze narrows, and starts to inspect the diners at the table around them.   He might not have her training, but his instincts are good  -- then, he’d know all Nunez’s men, wouldn’t he? So why –

The shot comes from high and to the left, punching a neat hole in the glass before it does the same thing in the centre of Nunez’s forehead.  He’s dead even before the second shot shatters the wide pane into a rain of glass, crashing down around them. 

Miles has already flipped the table into a makeshift barricade, but it’s Bennett who throws his body across Charlie and Nora, just as a third shot slams into the wood exactly where Charlie’s head had been a moment ago. Killshot, Nora’s brain supplies.  If it hadn’t been for Bennett …

Nora shoves him off her with a particularly ungrateful snarl. “I’m her fucking bodyguard, moron. Let me up.” She checks Charlie over, finds nothing more than a few grazes from flying debris, then helps her into a crouch.  “Heels off, get ready to run,” she murmurs into her ear, then turns to Miles, who has his gun out, trying to get a bead on the shooter.

“Dickhead,” Nora hisses.

He turns deadly black eyes on her and she relays the plan with a few sharp hand gestures.  _Count of 20.  Back exit.  Run._

He bridles, but she rolls her eyes and waits for the strategist to win out over the bloodlust.  They can focus on returning fire once they figure out exactly who is trying to kill them. One one hundred, two one hundred …

Miles accedes with the faintest of nods, pushing  Bennett in her direction as he clamps his arm around Charlie’s waist, eyes on Nora over her head as they move through the countdown.  Bennett looks between them, then tenses for action, his instincts clearly firing.  She taps out the countdown on his hand, and then yanks to pull him into action, weaving their way through half a dozen panicked goons as they sprint towards the kitchen.

“Move your asses and find the gunman,” Bennett bellows, but he never slows, loping next to her as they follow Charlie and Miles through the kitchen to the back door.  Miles waits for them to catch up, then pulls himself back to cover her as she puts her hand on the door knob.

“Let me,” Bennett hisses, and Miles shrugs, suspicion tight on his face.  His gesture is a showy “after you,” and Bennett actually smiles as he inches open the door.   Nora finds herself covering him, even as she examines the likelihood the shooter had been a Nunez cartel hire.  So far, the only casualty had been Nunez himself, so that made it unlikely.  But then – it wouldn’t be the first time a young prince had wanted to dispose of the reigning king.

Perhaps it had been a guilty conscience that led said prince to save the life of a perfect stranger. Or the prospect of sealing a valuable alliance, her brain insists on offering.

“Clear,” Bennett mutters, and she moves out after him, scoping all the likely firing lines.

“Clear,” she repeats, then allows Miles and Charlie to emerge into the alley after them.

“Plan?” Miles asks.

It’s a courtesy, she knows.  Or perhaps a test, to see if they’re still on the same page.  “Avoid the hotel.  We get a cab straight to Budget.  Rent something ordinary, then drive home.”

“What if the fight is here?”

Nora raises a brow and nods towards Charlie.  “Hunt it down later. Thought keeping her safe was the priority? Besides - why fight on their turf when you can own the field at home?”

He doesn’t agree verbally, but the resigned grimace signals his acceptance.  That, plus his attention has already shifted to the man stalking along beside her.  “You coming north with us or heading back south, Bennett?”

“Is that an invitation?”  Wariness drips from his words.  Sorrow too, reminding Nora that Connor Bennett has just seen his foster father killed right in front of him. And no one knows exactly where Miles will place the blame.  

“You can follow orders.  Handy with a gun.  Could be useful.”

“Still not an invitation.”

“Fine.  You’re out of a job, I’ve got one.  Fancy becoming a Matheson?”

“Odd choice of words.”

“It’s all about family, kid.  You saved a Matheson life. That’s worth something to me.”

“I’ll bet,” Bennett smirks, and Nora wants to kick him for the salacious tone.  Not the time to piss off Miles.  

“You two keep chattering like giddy teenagers and whoever it is out there will gun us all down without you stopping to draw breath,” she snaps.  “Negotiate your employment contact later, Bennett.”

“Wait.  Does this job come with benefits?”  he grins, dropping behind her a little to blatantly eye her ass.

“Yeah.  You get to say ‘yes boss’ every time you look at Nora from now on.  She’s in charge of security,” Miles snaps.  “And you’ll treat her with the respect that deserves.”

Nora rolls her eyes at his hypocrisy and shushes them both as she spots a taxi and flags it down. “Airport please,” she requests of the driver as they tumble inside.

Bennett is a warm presence pressed up against her side as the squeeze together in the back, Charlie on his other side.  It’s just the adrenaline, she tells herself.  Can’t be anything more.

Because her entire body is on fire where he’s touching her, and the sidelong looks he keeps giving her aren’t hiding a goddamn thing.  They’ve just seen a man murdered, fled a shootout were all their lives were in danger, but that’s not why they’re both breathing hard.  

“Put your gun away,” she murmurs quietly, then flinches as he brings his mouth right next to her ear.

“Not my gun you’re looking at, boss,” he breathes, and his cock twitches as if to underline the point.  Then he chuckles and returns his weapon to a shoulder holster inside his jacket, fingers accidentally brushing over her thigh as he rearranges himself on the seat.

Her entire being shudders, and for the first time, Nora wonders what the hell she’s got herself into.   Following her ex-lover into his new, old life? Tick.  Letting herself be seduced by Miles and Charlie and their special brand of Matheson madness? Sure.  But this?  A strange, sexually-charged craving for a 25-year-old kid she’s just met, a junior crimelord at that? 

She’s never wanted the impossible before.  It’s not who she is.  But maybe – Miles isn’t hers, anymore.  Charlie never was.  Maybe they won’t care.  Maybe they’ll let her have this. Maybe it’s her turn to say fuck what they think, and just take what she wants.  Like a Matheson would.

This time, it’s not Axl’s melodic snarl that she hears.  It’s Miles, in all his whiskey-and-cigarettes seduction of a voice, crooning. Tempting.  Daring her.

_You can have anything you want, but you better not take it from me_

*

“I want to go the ballet.”

Nora looks up from her book just in time to see Connor’s eyebrows shoot into his shaggy hairline.  They’re not in hiding, not exactly, but Miles has refused to let Charlie out of his sight in the weeks since the attack, and there’s only so much seclusion the Matheson princess was willing to take.   And Miles would most definitely not be going to the ballet.

“Anything in particular you want to see?” she asks, trying to think of how to pitch the excursion to Miles.  They’d followed every lead they had to exhaustion, and were still no closer to finding out who had ordered the hit on Nunez.  The deal had fallen through, the cartel disintegrating into a bunch of squabbling fiefdoms in the absence of its heir apparent, and her new employee was less than interested in returning to Mexico to take up the crown.  Chicago had its charms, he’d smirked.

She wonders, sometimes, if he’s fucking Charlie, because she knows it’s not her he’s sticking around for.  She’d slapped down his advances one too many times, and now when he looks at her, it’s with a boiling resentment that hurts to see.  It’s the best thing, she wants to plead.  The safest, for you.

Miles watches them like a hawk, and sometimes he smiles at the kid’s obvious crush.  Other times, his eyes darken with spite, and he makes a spectacle of pulling her into his lap, or pushing her to her knees to suck his cock.  At the fucking dinner table for God’s sake, Nora fumes.

Three days later and the rug burn still stings, almost as much as the look on Connor’s face had as she bent to obey.   Charlie had giggled, then moved in behind her, fingers busy between Nora’s legs as she threw herself into the blow job.  Thanks to Charlie, Nora had been on the edge of orgasm when Miles pulled her up to standing, then bent her over the table to fuck her ostentatiously, less than two feet from the younger man’s face.   Her eyes had been fixed on his, almost apologetic, as she started to wail and convulse, hating Miles for using her like this.  Connor had smiled wryly and reached for her hand, and she’d clung to him, helpless, as the waves of pleasure came crashing down.

Stupid, she thinks now.  So dangerous.

Charlie is chattering away about the merits of classical ballet versus modern dance, trying to choose between yet another rendition of Coppelia, and a new American Ballet Theatre production of Bolero.

“Bolero,” Connor and Nora chorus, and it’s settled.   They reserve a box high above the stage, knowing Miles will insist on privacy, even if he chooses not to join them.  In the end, it’s just the three of them, Connor helping Nora out of the long, black limousine, before he moves to the other side to open the door for Charlie.  They look amazing together, Nora has to admit, Connor’s dark curls and sensuous features the perfect foil for Charlie’s golden beauty, the diaphonous white gown framing her shoulders before plunging into her cleavage, the overall effect both virginal and wicked all at once.

Just as well she’s wearing slutty red, lest people get the wrong idea, Nora smiles to herself.  Connor escorts them both, playing the role of young man about town to the hilt, pulling them both close and pressing up against Charlie’s back to whisper in her ear as they navigate their way to the box.

“I’ll guard the entrance,” he says once Charlie and Nora settle into their comfortable chairs perched to allow them to see over the ornate balustrade. 

“No, you’ll miss it,” Charlie objects, and pats the seat next to her.  “Come sit down.”

“Yes ma’am Miss Matheson,” he salutes, sliding in next to Charlie with a sly grin at Nora. “If that’s okay with the boss.”

“I’m sure we can find a way to make it up to her,” Charlie purrs with the cat-that-ate-the-canary tone that sets Nora immediately on edge.  The magic of the ballet claims her, however, the evocative mix of stirring music and exquisite movement overcoming her suspicions. 

She barely hears it, so enthralled is she with the irresistible swell of Ravel’s masterpiece.

 “Damn, my programme.  Could you get that, Connor?” Charlie asks and Nora doesn’t think to glance at them, to see what they are doing.  It’s only when Charlie leans in to kiss her, desperate to muffle her own screams, that she figures it out.  Glances down to see the soles of a pair of man’s shoes peeping out from underneath the Cinderella dress as faint sounds of slurping and sucking reach her ears, Connor clearly eating Charlie out like a man who has never been fed.

Her jealousy is a blade to the heart, but mercifully brief.

“Nora now,” Charlie moans when he finally emerges from under her skirts, lips shiny with her juices. 

“Yes, ma’am,” Connor grins, and just like that, all the hurt feelings and frustrated longings melt away at a single order from a girl younger than them both.  So much for her will to resist him.

“I like your stockings,” he mutters into her thigh, tongue dancing over the clip to her garter.  “Why are you wearing underwear, though?”

“Wasn’t in on Charlie’s little plan,” she gasps, and “Oh God,” as he bites at her already throbbing clit through the damp silk.

“Take ‘em off?”

“Mmmmmm,” she agrees, and lifts her hips to let him tug her panties free.  The press of his tongue makes her groan so loud that Charlie has to trap it in a kiss, the swelling cadence in the background matching Nora’s heartbeat as she races towards her orgasm.

“Take it, Nora.  Take what you need,” Charlie hums against Nora’s ear as her hips start to undulate to the rhythm of his tongue, then thrash as her world flies apart.  She manages to come more quietly than Charlie did, her astonishment at the power of the orgasm striking her dumb as she shivers and shakes through the aftermath.

“Fuck,” is all she can say as Connor climbs back up and drops into the seat beside her.

“Fuck, indeed,” he pants, then drops his head back, careless to the way it bounces on the back of his seat. Nora can’t help but look down his long body to where his cock stands like a flagpole in his sharply tailored suit, signalling his excitement.

She’s not the only one looking, either.  “What are we going to do about that?” Charlie asks, blue eyes laughing as they meet her own.  She reaches out slowly, caresses him with a long, heavy stroke, then tangles her fingers with Nora when her own hand somehow ends up wrapped around his cock.  They milk him slowly, hands hidden behind the balcony, the sheen of sweat on Connor’s face easily explained by the warmth of the night.  If Mathesons ever cared to explain. 

But they didn’t, and she neither does she, anymore.  She’s almost giddy with it, the freedom, Nora discovers, and the smile on her face feels like sheer triumph as he starts to spurt, long gouts of it that darken the front of his trousers just as the entire audience rises to its feet, clapping wildly, the air ringing with their pleas for an encore.

“Sounds like a plan,” Charlie grins, then leads them out the door and down towards the lobby, heedless of the heads that turn their way.  She’s already calling Vincent to have him bring the car around, and it’s waiting out front by the time they make it to the street.

“Take the long way home,” Charlie instructs as they step into the limo, Connor pulling Nora straight onto his lap as Charlie settles herself opposite them to watch.

Their hands are linked, and his eyes are on her mouth, then roving over her face.  She’s never – she doesn’t – Nora looks away, unable to take the intensity of his stare.

“Hey?” he calls her back.  (Miles, she remembers, would force her attention back to him, tugging at her chin or yanking on her hair.  Connor asks.)

“Can I kiss you?  I’ve wanted to do that since the first time I saw you,” he asks, almost shy.

“How about you fuck me instead?” she answers, and it’s not until she’s riding him that she stops to wonder where, exactly, her panties ended up, and why, precisely, Charlie isn’t in the mix.

Easy questions to think about lest she lose her mind wondering just how stupid she’d have to be to fall in love with her possessive not-very-ex-boyfriend’s new henchman.

*

They make it as far as the library on the first floor before Charlie tells him to strip, and pushes him down on the rug to sit on his face.  “Wanna see you come again,” she moans, pleasure already spreading across her face, and she’s so beautiful in that moment that Nora can deny her nothing.  She sinks down onto Connor’s cock, and tilts her torso forward to tangle her hands in Charlie’s long hair, bringing their mouths together in a long, hungry kiss.

She’s already sore from the frantic sex in the back of the limo, but the desire coiling in her belly doesn’t seem to care, the sight of Charlie taking her pleasure and the feel of Connor inside of her bringing oblivion bearing down on her with shocking speed.

Nora closes her eyes to block out the intensity of it, but all she can see in the blackness is his face, the little smile he’d had when he’d pulled her sweaty hair out of her face after that first orgasm.  “Good?” he’d asked, and she’d only been able to nod, her world thoroughly rocked.

And this promises to be better, something tells her.  She’s about to … about to …

Her eyes pop open as sensation starts to overwhelm her, and then everything stops dead.

Miles is staring back at her, eyes as black as hell.  Charlie screams when grabs a fistful of hair to yank her free of Connor’s mouth, and in the same, smooth movement, puts a hunting knife to the younger man’s throat. 

“So, you think you can take my money, live in my house, and fuck my girls,” he sneers, beads of blood already welling under the knife.  “I might have a thing or two to say about that.”

Nora knows better than to move, but even her good sense can’t stop her from needing to beg. “For God’s sake Miles – don’t hurt him.  He’s a good guy.  He saved Charlie’s life!” she reminds him, black fear dragging her down.  This was the man she didn’t know.  The one she couldn’t predict.

Her entire body tenses, ready to spring, and he laughs. 

“I’d say stand down, Nora, but you’re already sitting so – move and he dies.  Kid just has to learn to play ball.  Has to really want it.”

That predator’s smile sends a shudder right down her spine.  “The thing is, Connor.  I don’t really trust you yet.  No one I really trust, besides Nora and Charlie here.  And maybe there’s a reason for that.”

He’s undoing his pants, slipping the zip down slowly to let Connor catch up.  See what’s coming.

“You see, when I say they’re my girls, they really are.  They’ll spread their legs for me at the drop of a hat.  Hell, I don’t even _have_ to wear a hat,” he jokes.   “So the question is this Connor – how fucked are you?  Just the regular kind or – you know.  Shallow grave kind.”

He’s uncomprehending at first, she can tell.  Connor’s brow creases, and his eyes shoot to the hand slowly lowering Miles’ fly.

“Wha --?”

“Can’t pretend I haven’t been thinking about this from the first time I saw that pretty Monroe mouth.  Question is – is that all you’re good for or will you beg me to fuck you hard, just like dear old Dad?”

“Dad? What?  Who?”

Miles loses patience then, and yanks hard on his cock to bring it to full tumescence.  “Your choice, kid.  Suck or fuck?”

“But I don’t --”

“Do I look like I care?”

He’s the devil, in that moment, and later, she’ll take it as a gift.  The moment she won her way free of Miles Matheson.  But the cost.

Everything she wanted, and the very worst thing she could imagine, all in one short night.


	4. You're in the jungle, baby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still for Romeo, who is the soul of patience. Here's your porn, darling. Sorry if it gets lost in the plot that was so desperate to take over :(

“Stop.”

Miles is so fixated on his victim that he ignores Nora’s command, too busy glutting himself on Connor’s confusion and shock.  Fear, too, the sweat breaking on his forehead forcing Nora into immediate action.  She fakes an uncomfortable squawk and reaches for the tumble of silk hastily discarded over the end-table – and the small, garter-strapped pistol hiding underneath.  

Don’t, she urges Connor silently as she wraps her hand around the familiar weight. Don’t show fear, or anger.  Don’t give him a goddamn thing, or he’ll use it crucify you.

Not this time, though. 

Nora raises the gun and clicks off the safety in one smooth movement.  Miles turns his head slowly, disbelievingly, as the miniscule sound registers.

“You’re not doing this, Miles.  I can’t let you.”

“It’s not who you are,” her stubborn heart screams, but her tongue is too thick with doubt. She would have sworn to it, a year ago, six months, but now – she can’t be sure.  How many devil’s bargains does a woman have to make before she realises who she’s in hock to?

All those questions she’d ignored, week in, week out. What had happened to his brother?  Why hadn’t Charlie seemed the faintest bit upset about her father’s death? Just how long had Miles been fucking her anyway? If he can do this, _be_ this – had the girl even been given a choice?

And then there’s the real zinger.  Did you even care, Nora? Were you deceived, or was this the man you were slavering over all along? Miles Matheson, pure amorality itself?

The dread prickles over her skin and leaves her sweaty.  She grips the gun more tightly, refusing to let it waver as she points it at his head.

“So you’re just gonna – shoot me? For wanting a go at your boy toy.”

“No.  For being so far gone that you think you can just take it,” she grits out.   “You’re a lot of things, Miles, but not a rapist.”

He recoils at the word a little, and she wants to hit him over the head for being so fucking surprised.    But it would be her death sentence, right now, nothing short of murder glaring out at her from his black eyes.

“You think you know me?” he spits, ignoring the gun completely.  Just like he taught her.  But she was a good student, one of his best, and she won’t let him intimidate her into shifting focus.  It’s not a betrayal if the person you think you are betraying never really existed.

Then she remembers how she’d gulped down their lust and shamelessness, grown drunk on it and let it release her own dark appetites.  They’d fed on each other until they eclipsed everything else. Basic decency.  Responsibility.  Standing up for what was right.

She can hear Charlie’s frightened little gasps, and in her peripheral vision, a bead of sweat rolls down Connor’s neck.  She wants to comfort them both, but she can’t take her attention from Miles for a second.  Was he so far gone that he might kill her? Kill them both?

Perhaps.  Probably, she admits. But she refuses to make excuses for it anymore.  To be a party to damage inflicted on anyone other than themselves.  She owes it to herself to stop him.

She might even owe it to Miles, and the part of him he was working so hard to kill.

Because she _does_ know him. 

“Not as well as I thought I did, but yes, Miles,” she replies. “You’ll happily fuck your own niece and say screw the world, but you didn’t particularly want to be a pervert, and you sure as hell don’t want to be a rapist.  You just want him to choose you, but – you’ve got a knife to his throat.  That’s not a choice.  That’s _rape_ ,” she insisted.  “You’ve never been that kind of monster.”

“Thought you were just the bodyguard.  This was just business,” he growls, not moving a muscle yet somehow allowing the threat level to recede several notches. “Didn’t hire you as my fucking conscience.”

“I think you did,” she says gently.  “Besides.  We both know I was lying when I said it would only ever be just business between us.”

He manages to smirk at that, then lets the knife retreat back into its sheath, releasing Connor with a dismissive shove. He’s nothing, it says.  Beneath his attention.

Connor’s muscles are tense, obviously readying for action, so she preempts him by stepping between them.  Miles lunges, of course, knocking the gun out of her hand and turning it on her in the same movement. She freezes, but refuses to look away. 

He doesn’t fire.

Nora lets the breath go.  She knows him. If he was going kill her, she’d already be dead.  She also knew better than to think of it as a reprieve.  Maybe he didn’t want to splatter her all over the carpet.

Hope insists in fluttering, though, especially when she identifies something that might even be shame pulling at his mouth as he watches Charlie fight to get air back into her lungs. 

“Sorry, babygirl.  Didn’t mean to scare you,” he offers, and Nora grinds her teeth to stop herself from flying at him.

Charlie is smart enough not to respond, simply nodding his way as she pulls her clothes back on. 

“Aww, I’ve broken up the party.  Should I feel bad?” he snarks, and Nora welcomes it, this revolting attempt at lightheartedness.  She might have been tempted to forgive him, otherwise, but it helps convince her there is no coming back from this, and only one way forward.

“Not anymore,” she says finally, and nudges Connor with her hip.  “Get dressed. Then pack.”

Miles doesn’t say a goddamn thing, but his eyes are weary as he watches them walk out the door.  She waits for the bullet every step, but it doesn’t come.  Maybe being allowed to leave is declaration enough.

They don’t bother to change their names, or try to hide.  Do that, she explains, and the mere challenge of it would force Miles to hunt them down.  Better just to leave, and head south.  He’ll either come after them, or he won’t.

“I know a place,” Connor smiles, and they drive and drive and drive until the road runs out next to a greeny-blue sea under a sky she’s never seen.  The village has a dozen houses, two bars, and a string of huts along the mesmerising beach.

It’s not home, and its hotter and more humid than she’d like, but the sand doesn’t scratch at her sanity the way the desert did, and she can breathe, here.  If the jungle looms in the edge of her vision, so be it.

She’ll ignore it as long as it lets her.

*

Nora feels the sand heating up under the soles of her feet, and yanks her scarf across her mouth before the wind kicks up.  Time to move inside and get started on their evening, tequila and poker and the sort of outrageous flirting she’d never really bought into before.

“I’m a sure thing, you know,” she’d pointed out that first night, when he’d slowly set her on fire with the sly play of his fingers over her ankle and calf.  “You don’t have to seduce me.”

“Maybe I’m a poor loser.  Trying to distract you,” he’d countered, nodding at the cards in her hand.  “Or maybe I just like the feel of your skin.”

She couldn’t help but smile at that, but her voice had stayed as dry as the Sahara. “Mmm.  My wonky toes must really be turning you on.” 

He’d tickled his fingers up her instep, making her writhe, then dropped a kiss on the top of her foot.  “Nah.  It’s your romantic soul.  All your mushy talk makes me nearly as hard as when you kick my ass at poker. ”

She’d thought he was joking, but then she felt him harden under her foot as she laid out her winning hand.  Nora smiles now at just how surprised she had been to discover someone could enjoy losing so much.

“Not me losing,” he’d explained.  “The look on your face when you’re winning.  All that triumph. Sexy as fuck,” he’d groaned, and maybe she’d gone too far, pushing her toes into his crotch and demanding he pay tribute.  Didn’t matter though.  He was the one who chose to fall to his knees and crawl under the table to get to her.  He was one who pushed her knees wide, and tortured her with puffs of hot breath playing across her inner thighs.

Her strangled gasps had become moans by the time he finally lowered his mouth to her skin, lips and teeth leaving a trail of love bites in a slow progress towards her bikini-clad mound.  She was already lifting her hips for hip to take them off when he decided to lap up the wetness seeping out from under the lycra, then use his fingers to sensitise the skin all over again. He’d pushed her back into the chair and held her there as he nudged her clit with his nose and scraped at the fabric with his teeth, making her buck and curse and beg. Then he sat back on his heels.

“Hmm.  Does my lady want me to bow down before her? To beg for a taste?”  he crooned, eyes boiling as they locked with her own.   “I’m fucking happy to.  Please milady, let me take these off.  Let me make you come.  Let me – “ he reared up over her then, catching her lips in a fierce, biting kiss, “make you _scream_.”

She had.  Loudly, helplessly, wantonly, her first orgasm crashing down even before he’d dragged the sodden lycra from her body.  The second had been a slow, twisting thing that turned her inside out and left her face down on the table in front of her, shuddering with the overload of sensation.

“Empty,” she had begged, and the gentle press of his cock was so tender, so loving, that her raw senses couldn’t take it.  “Harder,” she had hissed, and he wrapped his hands in her hair for purchase, then slammed home.  “Harder,” she moaned again, and waited for him to fuck it away, that sense of being adored.  The tenderness, even as his fingers pressed bruises into her hips and his cock ravaged the slick tissues of her sex.

Connor Bennett, she’s starting to think, might have invented the art of topping from the bottom.  The things she’s discovering about herself, the parts of her she’s never even thought to explore, the pure eroticism of their connection – it leaves her dizzy.

And horny, Nora smiles as she gathers up her novel and bottle of water.  To a degree that had surprised her, since she’d never thought her sex life to be lacking before.  It hadn’t, she knows, not really.  The ingredient that had been lacking had nothing to do with sex.

She’s drunk on love, and she hasn’t told him yet, but soon.  Every day they spend together, every long, sweat-drenched night, every time he puts himself into her hands and trusts, every time she abandons herself completely … she feels a little more free.

She doesn’t need her survival tactics anymore.  Doesn’t need the six foot walls around her heart, razor wire and a line of guns on top.  Doesn’t need to run evasive maneouvres or camouflauge herself or constantly deflect, deflect, deflect.  She is free of Miles Matheson, and at last her heart is safe.

Nora’s steps quicken until she is practically jogging up the beach, vibrating with the glory of her epiphany.  She bursts through the door to their cabin, and he’s still asleep, her siesta king, face down on the bed, long legs and ridiculously muscled butt and the glorious, scratched-up landscape of his back all bared for her delectation.

She drops her bag in the corner and strips nude to crawl over him, blanketing his tall body with her smaller one, toes tickling at his calves, nipples dragging across the sharp thrust of his shoulderblades as she leans up to whisper in his ear.

“I love you.”

“Mmuph.”

“I love you, Connor Bennett.”

“Whaa?”

“Gonna keep saying it until you wake up and hear it properly.  I love you.”

“Love you too, baby.”

He’s still half asleep, even with one hand reaching around to stroke her hip.

“Wake up, idiot.  I. Love. You.”

He lifts his head from the pillow, and starts to turn over, catching her and dragging her back over his hips as he rotates.  He’s already hard, and she’s already wet, so they slide together with no preamble, no dirty words or carefully managed scene.

Just Connor, and Nora, and trust, and love, and the freedom to be exactly who they want to be.

It’s a moment in time, a moment out of life, but she has this now, Nora exults as she rides him slowly, her entire body and soul attuned to the man below her.

She’ll never lose this, never let anyone take it away.

Especially not him, she vows.

They’re going to have to do something about Miles, find some way to stop him.

“Hey. Tell me you aren’t thinking about Matheson right now.” Connor thrusts up into her, making it hard to retain her train of thought, and she grimaces because yes … but no.

“Not the way you think.  I want to take him out,” she gasps, circling her hips in a slow grind, needing to be closer. His fingers are on her clit, but she doesn’t want to come just yet, needs this moment, this clarity, for a few seconds longer.  She catches his hands in her own and pulls them behind her back, dragging him up to sitting.  She brings her legs around to cross behind his back, and stills her hips to a gentle rock.  Connor moans, closing then opening his eyes to stare directly into her own as the tension between them spirals towards fruition.

 “Okay then.”

It’s not the murder talk that does it.  It’s the trust.  The unthinking support. 

Nora presses her mouth against his and surrounds herself in the taste of him, the feel, the warm golden pulse of _home_ and _safe_ and _love_ as her body clamps down on his, his moans filling her ears, the spill of his seed inside her a suddenly sacred thing. 

“I love you,” she says as they sag against other afterwards.

“I know.  And you know I love you, right?”

“Yup.  But it doesn’t hurt to hear it.”

“You’re right.”

She loves that goddamn smirk too much for her own good, and the minute she regains the strength in her arms, she’ll sock him in the mouth.  Maybe.

Or maybe she’ll kiss it off his face instead.

Or … tie him to the bed, and drown him in her pussy.  Not much of a punishment, since he seems overly fond of it, but … they can pretend.   He begs so prettily, after all.

She’s going to dedicate tonight to making him beg, Nora decides.  Tomorrow, they’ll talk shop.

And get ready to make a start on the rest of lives.

_Gonna make you bleed …_

*

They want to live free, so ending up in jail wasn’t an option.  That ruled out assassination, even if they were sure they could escape unharmed from such an attempt.  But if they weren’t going to kill him, that left only one other option.  And the justice system had been trying to get the jump on the Mathesons for decades.

“But they never had us,” Connor points out, and the truth vibrates in Nora’s bones.  No one has ever turned on the family: the Matheson secrets are too tightly kept.  But she already knows more than almost anyone else.  His lawyer, perhaps.  Whoever has taken up guarding Charlie since she left.

Charlie herself.

She can’t breathe, suddenly, the plan laying itself out in front of her like a mirage.  It will take years.

“So it takes years,” Connor shrugs.  “We’ll do what we have to.”

There’s a settlement of sorts in her bank account, severance pay if anyone asks, enough to make it possible to start again.  Move back to Chicago, dust off her old degree.

She wanted to be a lawyer, once, and had even done some of the pre-reqs before her finances had forced her into enlistment if she was going to finish.  And the prospect of having a life, a real profession once she is free of this – it’s a no brainer.

While she moves out of the darkness, Connor moves deeper, and sometimes, it keeps them apart.  When the word comes that Miles is recruiting again, that all seems to be forgiven, she urges him not to take the job.

“You shouldn’t have to look at him.  Shouldn’t have to do that to yourself,” she hisses, and his eyes are full as he gazes back.

“He actually apologised.  Not that that means shit, but – I pretended it did.  And he gave me this.”  

The file is thick, and the label is a neat one.  SEBASTIAN MONROE.

That night comes back, in all its obscenity.  “Your pretty Monroe mouth,” Miles had said.

“Is that?”

“Yeah.  My father.”

The single, large photo shows a man with blond curls and sharp blue eyes who looks nothing like Connor Bennett.   But the first page of the dossier is an extract from a birth certificate.  Emma Bennett, 18, of Jasper, Indiana, had named her son Connor Monroe Bennett.

Then come the swathe of death certificates.  Nora holds her breath as Connor reads, then rests her forehead between his shoulder blades in wordless support. Monroe had lost both his parents and two sisters less than a week after Connor was born. 

“Poor guy would have been a mess,” he murmurs, and Nora lets a tear slip free, undone by the show of empathy.

“Maybe he never even knew about you,” she suggests, but he’s further into the file now – records of his father’s police service, and then a marriage.

More deaths – a wife and baby, this time.

“Fuck,” he hisses.  “How much bad luck can one guy have?”

Maybe, Nora finds herself thinking, it hadn’t been bad luck.  Miles Matheson claimed him as a best friend.  A lover, even.   Maybe the glowing service record, the commendations and the awards – maybe it was all a front.  Maybe karma had come hunting for him, because how decent person put up with Miles Matheson?  

You did, her conscience reminds her.  All those years you never knew, and came so close to falling in love with him.  All those months you did, and chose to thrill to his darkness, to roll in it, like a pig in muck.  There’s only one way to find out which Monroe had done.

 “Are you ready to meet him?”

Connor is.

*

“We’re moving back to Jasper,” Charlie whispers.  “Is this going to throw a wrench in our plans?”

“Doesn’t have to,” Nora soothes.  “I’ll see what our contact at the Chicago PD can do.  Maybe he knows someone up there.”

Monroe doesn’t, but he puts in for a transfer.  He hates Jasper nearly as much as Miles did, he confides to Nora, then shrugs.  “Maybe it’s time to put that behind me.  Find a girl, get on with my life.”

She laughs, and sets him up with one of her law school friends.  No one even bothers to pretend that the age gap is a problem – Bass Monroe is even prettier than his son.  Just as well she met Connor first, Nora finds herself thinking.  Her love life is complicated enough.

And she hasn’t even walked back into Miles Matheson’s life yet.

*

He finds her on the steps of the law library.

“Heard you’d graduated.  I could use a good lawyer,” Miles says coolly, and Nora can smile.  She feels nothing, now.  No twist in her belly, no frantically beating heart.  He’s older, but that’s not it.  Better looking than ever, if she’s honest.

But she knows what love feels like, now.  How it warms you from the inside out.  Keeps you safe in the storm.

So she smiles, and agrees to have coffee.  Asks about Charlie.  Resists the urge to grind her teeth as he offers her an indulgent smile and brags about the Matheson Princess and her charitable works.

I know, Nora smiles politely.  I set up most of those foundations for her.  She’s almost ready to take you on.

_Bring you to your knees_

It hadn’t been the years of planning that had hurt, or watching Connor have to deal with the Mathesons on a daily basis, or the prospect of the final betrayal.  It had been having to stand back, hearts aching, as Miles wove his web tighter and tighter around Charlie, watching her grow paler and thinner each time they carefully coincided at a benefit, or an art show, or for old time’s sake, the theatre.

Connor doesn’t get down on his knees this time, but only because they need to be more discreet.  They are back in their seats by the final curtain, but the long second act takes place in a hotel room across the street, Nora and Connor licking their way from one bruise to the next as if trying to heal Charlie with pure adoration.   

The next day they send in Monroe. 

The last honest cop in Chicago, people said, but could they trust that?  He still called Miles his best friend – his brother, even – and they’d call him on it, they would, if Connor hadn’t made her swear never to bring up that awful night again.  Bass must never know, he begs.  They can’t do that to him.  Nora thinks a little less camaraderie between Bass and Miles could do a world of good, but Charlie agrees.  The cop is too honest.  He wouldn’t be able to hide his fury at something like that. So they spill other secrets instead, crooked bookkeeping and illegal gambling and a string of brothels from one end of the country to the other.

“And then there’s the way he treats Charlie,” Connor tells his father, and the conversation stills.  They know something is happening there – just another honey trap as far as Miles is concerned – but just the mention of her name makes him rub restlessly at his jaw, and clench his fists.

“We know he beats her.  We’ve seen the bruises,” she adds, knowing it will close the case. Bass Monroe, like his son, is a good man.    

She and Connor are lying in bed, feet entwined, as they go over the fine details of the plan.  He’s been reserved all day, and is restless now.  Eventually, it tumbles out.

“Do you think he can do it?  Are we right to even be asking him? I mean – Miles was his best friend and he’s already lost so much.”

She’s considered it too – liking Monroe was a surprise, given the history he and Miles seemed to have – but it was Connor’s father who helped her decide in the end.  The way he shrugged his shoulders, as if he had no choice in the matter.

“It’s the right thing to do, Connor.  A man like him, the life he’s lived – that’s all he needs.”   Unlike us, she wants to add, but can’t.  Sometimes she aches for the simplicity of a life like that, the life that Connor was denied and she threw away.  But the past is past.  They’re working on a better future.

And besides.

Monroe might have more of a vested interest than he’s been willing to admit.  She knows Charlie, and the effect she can have on men.  Sebastian Monroe had recovered quicker than most, but the way he looks at her … it’s familiar.  She sees it every day, in brown eyes rather than blue.

Nora rolls to face Connor just as he turns towards her. There’s a magic in how their bodies align, eyes to eyes, lips to lips, hearts and minds and souls.  She lets it fill her, reassure her, flow between them.  She’d spent so much time hating it, this jungle, this savage she’d become.  But she can see it now.   They are who they are, sharp teeth and all.  You needed a tiger, after all, if you were going to take down a lion.

And her Jungle had two, slinking through the undergrowth on their way to defang the King, rescue the Princess, and burst into the light.  

_Gonna bring you down, ha!_

 

_fin_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And if you are wondering what comes next, go read Ties That Bind by hayj. I haven't done a great job of dovetailing the two stories, since I hadn't intended it to be a perfect fit, but they grew closer and closer together as I wrote.


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